‘The Boys’ Cast Reveals What They Want to See in the Final Season (VIDEO)
The Boys are back in just a few more days and the cast is starting to spill some deets on what we can expect. Heading into its fifth and final season, Prime Video‘s profane and timely hit is poised to wreak some real havoc as the battle between our vigilante heroes and the corporate-backed, blatantly corrupt supes reaches the kind of messy, maniacal climax only this show could edge out.
“The final season is our darkest season,” warns Erin Moriarty ahead of the April 8 premiere. “[It] is the most emotional season for justified and obvious reasons. We’ve earned it. It’s not arbitrary. It’s really heartbreaking. It’s the most heartbreaking season that we’ve had yet. And [showrunner Eric] Kripke has said no one is safe.”
Moriarty and a huge part of the ensemble recently sat down to discuss the upcoming battle royale, which finds her ex-pat superhero Starlight now firmly on the side of good, along with boyfriend Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), Mother’s Milk (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Kimiko (Karen Fukuhara). Determined to combat the fascist efforts of Homelander (Antony Starr) and his cronies within the U.S. government, the team is also grappling with how to handle their now-superpowered and genocidal leader, Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), as well as the idea of possible failure.
Prime Video
“At the beginning of Season 5, I had a meeting with Kripke to talk about the arc of my character throughout the season and leading up to the final episode,” reveals Fukuhara. “And he said that Kimiko and Hughie are the characters that are holding onto hope. A lot of the other characters are starting to lose that glimmer of hope that we can actually make it to the end.”
And even if they do make it out alive, getting there will be a wild ride. Given the show’s history of not just pushing boundaries but actually obliterating them and then hosting fluid-saturated orgies where those boundaries once stood, we asked the cast what they hoped to see in the final season. And some of their ideas were as surprising as the sight of a miniaturized supe sneezing and exploding out of the urethra of his lover.
Jessie T. Usher, whose A-Train has defected to Butcher’s side, was “hoping to see A-train confront what he’s been running from. I was hoping that he was able to have some moments of honesty.” Noting that in past seasons, “when we heard him be honest, it was half truthful,” the actor feels like it’s time for the speedy supe to finally get back on track. “I felt like A-Train has always sort of been in playing in that gray area.”
For Alonso, it’s a return to form for his fellow freedom fighters. “I was looking forward to doing scenes again that reminded me of Seasons 1 and 2, where the whole team is back together,” he admits. “Those days are typically longer, of course, because there’s more coverage and everybody’s got a line. But there is a little bit of nostalgia at going out the way we came in, the Spice Girls working together as a team again.”
Prime Video
Urban, however, had a more Butcher-esque wish list. “I just really wanted to see, one last time, a penis wrap around Laz’s neck. Just one last time!”
While we can’t confirm or deny that Mother’s Milk will get a rematch against his sworn enemy with the prehensile phallus, it does sound like there will be “more of the same” insanity, as Starr puts it.
“All I wanted was us to finish with the integrity of the show, the story, the characters intact,” declares the Emmy-robbed Homelander. “I wanted us to stay in our lane and just do what we’ve been doing, not trying to please everyone… If we stick to our lane, we’ll land the plane somewhere good. I don’t know exactly where that is, but it’ll be in a nice spot.”
“You don’t want to change the playbook in the fourth quarter when you’re up by 30 points,” echoes Jensen Ackles, back this season as Homelander’s cryo-kept racist curmudgeon of a father, Soldier Boy. “You want to stick to the game plan.”
“And knock on wood, I do believe that we’ve done that, which is a testament to the writers because they did a great job, in my opinion,” continues Starr. “I’m cautiously optimistic that the fans will appreciate what’s happened.”
Still, expect big surprises and even bigger swings. Susan Heyward, who joined The Boys in Season 4 as brainiac badass Sister Sage along with fellow Vought recruit Firecracker (played by the fabulous Valorie Curry) promises an unexpected path to those final credits. “This audience is so smart and the writers are also so smart, so you’ve got this great balance of the writers always trying to stay ahead of this audience. We want to surprise people.”
“Writing a finale to a show that goes this long is super hard,” adds Quaid. “And I just got to give it up to the writers and Eric for landing the plane. At least in my view, I think they did an amazing job.”
The Boys, Season 5 Premiere, Wednesday, April 8, Prime Video
Sometimes Going Rogue Pays Off
Get absolutely everything about The Boys in your inbox!
Watchlist Easy access to only the shows you care about — all in one simple place
Alerts Only important notifications — when a show is returning, when it becomes available to stream, and more.
Special Offers Exclusive products we release related to your favorite shows and streaming services